An alliance for embassy security

“We’re putting more Marines at our high-threat diplomatic posts, and we’re making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials,” Kerry said recently in a speech at the Foreign Service Institute Overseas Security Seminar. “We’re working more closely with the Defense Department, with our partners, linking our embassies with various military commands to make emergency extraction more central to our military mission.”

Currently, the State Department also employs about 32,000 local guards worldwide at more than 275 locations, the official said. Some of those guards are directly hired by the U.S. government; others are third-party contractors employed by outside firms. Local guards are usually citizens of the host nation, the official said.

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And there’s no shortage of controversy.

Both Congress and the administration are wary of contracting with heavy-handed security firms to protect embassies and other diplomatic posts. Still, Soloway noted, contractors are prepared for this type of duty and may be more affordable.

“The fact that highly qualified contractors are available and can be part of the solution is fairly evident and well-known,” he said. “DOD personnel is a loose term — you will be using, in an embassy situation, Marines or probably diplomatic security service. And from a cost perspective, there are enormous differences between those two, and significant differences between those two and using contractors.”

So far, the political momentum is pushing for ramped-up embassy security. But Soloway cautioned tides can turn quickly in Washington.

“The key here is, it’s always dangerous to make assumptions based on the current temperature of the environment,” he said. “The next step really has to be some careful assessments of what kind of security would actually be helpful and sensible and is cost-effective.”

“Once you step back from the emotions of the moment and figure out what are the gaps and how to best fill them,” he said, “then we’ll know better what it looks like.”

Embassies have been looking at how to best increase security for years, but the fallout from the Benghazi attacks has created an opportunity to actually achieve results.

But first, the government needs to do extensive analytics of the security needs at U.S. outposts, Soloway said.

“It’s not a foregone conclusion that more guards is the issue,” he added. “It might be better sensors, better electronic security systems, better intel — there’s a number of layers to it.”